"The Lady's Scales"

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"The Lady's Scales" (淑女の天秤, Shukujo no Tenbin) is the ninth episode of the Sakura Quest anime series, aired on May 31, 2017. The episode was written by Shingo Irie, storyboarded by Heo Jong and directed by Tomoaki Ohta.

With Shiori stepping up to bridge the gap between the Board of Merchants and the Tourism Board, she led Yoshino and her fellow ministers to the next event that would aim to boost the tourism of Manoyama. As they looked into local cuisine and ingredients, Shiori also looked to resolve a glaring misunderstanding between Sayuri, her older sister, and her former classmate.

Still shaking from the ordeal she just faced, Shiori talked to her fellow ministers as they drove to Angelica's cafe, while Ririko headed back home, proving her ignorance over the schedule conflict issue. In Angelica's cafe, the girls noticed that the town likes their somen noodles, to the point that even Mr. Sandal added somen on his plate of borscht. Eventually, this talk about the town's favorite noodles inspired Shiori to use this in the Tourism Board's upcoming event.

The next day, Shiori handed over the proposal for a somen competition that would allow the townsfolk to submit their noodle recipes while allowing local merchants to benefit from the use of local ingredients. With both Ushimatsu and Chitose agreeing to Shiori's proposal, the project immediately begun. With Yoshino managing to get the approval of various groups around Manoyama, she, Maki, Sanae and Ririko head to Bistro L'Ours to promote the somen contest. Here, while sampling his French toast, Katsumi recalled about how Sayuri helped him discover his interest for cooking, as well as an unresolved misunderstanding between Katsumi and Sayuri. Unfortunately, despite Katsumi managing to meet Sayuri on the day she moved to the next town, the issue between them remained unresolved.

As the ministers continued talking about the unresolved misunderstanding between Katsumi and Sayuri, Yoshino arrived at the Manoyama Tourism Center with the good news that all the booths for the event are filled and one of the participants have given a platter of onigiri wrapped with konbu, one of the most consumed products in Manoyama. Soon, Shiori found herself thinking of a recipe that would involve both konbu and somen, while Yoshino continued on her secret collaboration with Mr. Dokushima.

At the day of the Manoyama Somen Mega Expo, the Tourism Board prepared a "flavored somen" dish composed of konbu flakes, okra, natto, mountain yam and sesame oil. Meanwhile, later through the program, Yoshino unveiled a machine that allows the "player" to participate a simulation of nagashi somen and demonstrated it in front of a crowd. The event concluded with a spicy somen spring roll taking the top prize, but the Tourism Board's recipe was so well-received that restaurants (like Angelica's cafe) and households alike wanted to try more of the recipe.

Later that afternoon, Shiori set up a meeting with Sayuri and Katsumi at the Chupakabura Kingdom Palace. With Shiori handing over an old calendar to Katsumi beforehand, Sayuri realized that she read the wrong calendar in her airheadedness, causing the misunderstanding in the first place, and Katsumi made sure to make up for the lost time by inviting her to his restaurant once again. Meanwhile, an exhausted Yoshino was congratulated by her ministers for her efforts in the event. Yoshino then finally appointed Shiori as the Minister of Mediation for her achievements during the planning of the festival, which lasted for three seconds, much to Yoshino's shock.

The episode's title is a rather indirect reference to Shiori's role in the episode as the mediating entity between the Board of Merchants and the Tourism Board. The Japanese word for "scales", tenbin, also refers to the astrological sign Libra, which is signified by a balance scale. Similarly, like a balance scale, Shiori balanced the priorities of the two boards and allowed both sides to meet at a common point.

Borscht is an Eastern European dish consisting of a soup made out of beetroots.

Nagashi somen is a kind of preparation for somen where ice-cold water and noodles are passed along a bamboo flume and diners have to pluck the noodles from the bamboo before it reaches the end.